My husband and I have been listening nightly to This American Life, the NPR radio show. Decades ago when we would listen, we would call it “driveway stories” because we would get home and have to stay in the driveway to finish listening to the story before we left the…
Where are you fighting reality? What do you need to accept? What boundaries can you put in place? Instead of playing victim to circumstances or others, empower yourself through acceptance.
When the pandemic struck last spring, we did our best to adapt. We looked forward to the summer, then the fall, then the new year. Every time we reached our expectation of when things should “get back to normal” and found that nothing changed, we became sad, angry, and despondent.…
One of my Achilles’ heels is the tendency to hold myself back. It is ironic because in so many other ways I have a bull-in-a-china-shop drive toward what I want. Guess this is just one of many ways I still have an all-or-nothing attitude. Either I am driven and unstoppable,…
The first half of my life, I pursued truth and absolutes. As a perfectionist, I wanted to know what was absolutely perfect, then live every moment living up to that ideal. My second half of life is being spent releasing the notion that there is any absolute truth and perfection.…
As we move into the new year, many of us have historically created new years’ resolutions. After 2020, we may just be praying to survive, tentatively embracing the unknown. For me, instead of just enduring the new year, my goal is to live purposefully. Inspired by the book, Becoming Better…
For Christmas, a dear friend gave me the book Becoming Better Grownups by Brad Montague. I read the 300-page book in just a few days. Don’t be too impressed with my reading speed, there are a lot of pictures in the book. Brad Montague is the creative force behind Kid…
As we come upon the tail end of a challenging year, I find it important to look with hope into the future instead of reliving this year’s pain. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying we need to sweep issues under the rug. What we do need to do…
For good or bad, one of my driving forces is perfectionism. Because of this, I am very focused on solutions, searching always for a tool or a way of being that would lead to right choices and perfect ways of living. My focus had been on the ideal, the end…
I remember the isolation of winters in Chicago. I can’t imagine what it is like this year after months of summer-time isolation. Even though I am in a location where I can still walk safely and warmly outside, with the holidays upon us I am beginning to feel the pangs…